| by Rodolfo Ascenso MISTAKE With the approach of new elections the Government has certainly given in to the pressure of those most populist groups of Macau politicians and decided to apply a series of measures to restrict the non-resident labour force. What a mistake! The very people who will have to pay for this, whether in the short or in the long term, will be the very same people who are supposed to be protected; - the workers themselves. One doesn’t have to be an economist to understand that one of the consequences of this measure will be an increase in the salaries of the workers concerned. More money going into circulation - as has been happening lately - causes an increase in the level of inflation. With the RMB (yuan) on a constant rise, and Macau’s dependency on the Chinese market, control over price rises becomes more and more difficult; so we shouldn’t be surprised to see the salary rises received by workers diluted by their increased costs of living. This, however, is not even the main problem. Huge problems are awaiting small and medium enterprises which are already strangulated and unable to compete with the salaries rocketing upwards, sky-high. Besides that, the economic problems are not the only ones that ought to be considered in this process. There are xenophobic undertones in the claims of those people supporting the measures. Promotions, management and supervisory positions, or even simpler tasks, should be distributed in accordance with competence, performance and qualifications, and not by the criteria of nationality or race. It’s doubtful, even absurd to consider, that any employer would keep a more competent and capable Macau resident in an inferior job position whilst making better offers to non-residents. It doesn’t make sense, and there are no reasons for it to be that way. There is yet another reason, of a historical nature, to disagree with the Government’s measure: if it were not due to the fusion of cultures, with all those religions, ideologies and social groups living in this land, a land which locals always knew how to open up and allow to be everybody’s place, the Macau S.A.R. wouldn’t have come into existence. Without all those cultures that make Macau a unique city in the world there would be no reason to have here a Second System. Macau would have been a village of just 200 thousand inhabitants in a country where cities take in millions of people. In that case, not even among this population of half a million, would politicians with weak consistency like Ng Kwok Cheong, Au Kam San or Pereira Coutinho be able to make their careers. What a shame that the Government gave them reasons to celebrate because, for Macau, the decision is wrong! POISON The United States’ Government decided to go ahead with an arms deal with Taiwan. The former Taiwanese President supporting the independence has done everything he could to have this deal, but he did not succeed. With the new President who won a clear victory in recent elections, the relationships between the two sides of the Strait improve day by day. The decision of the United States has only one objective: to poison the climate of reduced tension between Taipei and Beijing. The main victim is Ma Ying-jeou, who in the interim is not in a position to reject the North American offer; and accepting it means compromising the peace and harmony created in such a short period of time. This North American attitude is absolutely deplorable. Fortunately we can trust the responsibility of the Governments in Beijing and Taipei who will know how to minimise the consequences of this poisonous injection. Luckily, we are four weeks away from the Presidential elections in the United States, and all signs indicate that the policies of the unqualifiable Bush will not have a successor. NOTES As Alfred Gusenbauer noted in his opinion article published in the Macau Daily Times, mentioning the Nobel Prize Laureate Paul Samuelson, the absolute freedom of the market results in Rockefeller’s dog drinking the milk much needed for a poor child, not because of the faults of the market, but rather because “the goods would be in the hands of those who pay for them”; with the crisis established what should we expect? In the Ukraine, the crisis of the personal relationship between the President Victor Yushchenko and the Prime Minister Yulia Timoshenko resulted in a political crisis with the country going to the polls, possibly in December; we shall hope that the heated discussions typical of electoral campaigns will not inflame the situation in the Crimea, alarmingly similar to those experienced by South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Published in Macau Daily Times, 11 October 2008 |
12 October 2008
Populism and elections
05 October 2008
No easy solution for Macau labour crisis
The problem of the Macau labour force lies in the enormous imbalance between the real needs of the labour market, the phenomenon of social sentiment and the ways in which the issue itself is being presented to the general public by social groups and authoritative voices who frequently tend to manipulate the subject in any direction which they feel appropriate according to the call of the moment.
The task of maintaining the local workers’ unemployment rate at a low level is undoubtedly enormous, but in no way should it have direct links to the overall plan of economic development of Macau through a cut in foreign labour, especially on the background of structural unemployment, a situation which a great many countries would envy.
The Government rightly makes efforts to increase the number of training and career development courses for local residents in several areas, including tourism and the casino industry. Despite all those good intentions there are at least four major pitfalls which are not being addressed.
The first of them is the fact that the total demand for qualified personnel needed to occupy management and supervisory positions by far exceeds the tiny number of local employees physically available to undergo such training and eventually substitute the outgoing foreigners.
Secondly, the objectives are not at all clear. If we trust the official figures of full employment in Macau, are we trying to integrate the remaining six thousand of functionally unemployed unqualified residents into the active labour force at all costs, or is there something wrong with the statistics?
The third issue is the quality of the educational programmes and the educators themselves. It’s no secret that recent years have seen a sharp deterioration in the quality of education offered locally, leading many students to opt for tremendously expensive private schooling and study overseas. The paradox of Government training may result in qualifications being insufficient to satisfy the requirements of future employers, while the local education sector itself may experience, or is already experiencing, a critical demand for imported foreign instructors and the organisation of something better than evening and weekend courses.
The fourth drawback is a seemingly total lack of attention to the areas of economy which go beyond the traditional tourism and casino industries, but are absolutely indispensable for balanced economic development. The exhibition and convention industry is sidelined, despite the fact that it takes a great deal of time and financial resources to produce professionals in that sector. The language abilities of local residents are left to the discretion of the prospective students themselves, as “they should make use of their spare time […] to improve their foreign language abilities”, according to Dr. Shuen, Director of the Labour Affairs Bureau. As a language specialist with more than 20 years experience in applied linguistics, may I suggest strongly that the foreign language abilities which Macau really needs may not, and will not, be developed in the spare time by individuals with precarious levels of general education. It would take more than a few highly qualified native speakers of a language and a modern educational technique applied over a significant period of time to achieve that objective, not to mention that the process must start from a comprehensive and thorough review of primary and secondary schooling.
Given the fact that nearly all future projects in the Government portfolio are extremely labour intensive, and a general understanding that the recently announced cuts of foreign labour in the construction, casino, cleaning and building management sectors are only the first indicators of a much bigger programme, we would hope not to receive a wrong message, which would warrant preparations for an abrupt halt in economic development as has happened in the past, time and again. We trust that these measures are a part of some comprehensive and scientific economic planning, the details of which remain to be seen.
Having grown up in a family of aviators, I couldn’t have left unnoticed the new economic reality for both major casino players and local small and medium enterprises (SMEs) brought about by restrictions in the individual travellers scheme, and an immediate need to get inbound travellers from places much further away. This need can only be satisfied through an efficient and flexible aviation industry, appropriate aircraft and, again, qualified people. With continuing feuds over outdated monopolies and a blind eye to the education and human resources needed for the industry what can we possibly expect? An aviation sector which is still in its infancy and totally out of reach for locally educated Macau residents.
Local universities do excellent work in educating foreign students and preparing them to join labour markets back in their home countries. Do we teach and prepare enough local residents for the tasks needed in Macau? I’ll leave the answer to that to the reader’s discretion.
We must give credit to the Government for finally focusing the issue on the most problematic areas and for departing from the implicitly generalised idea of merely having too many foreign labourers. The new draft of the Labour Relationship Law is a clear improvement over the 1984 Legal Regime of the Labour Relationship, which in turn was inherited from the Portuguese legislation dating back as far as the 19th century. The next most sensitive step would be the long-awaited draft of legislation on foreign labour and part-time workers, currently under preparation. The Government has a tremendous task at hand; the task of giving Macau the chance of a better future, and this task is not an easy one.
The proposed remedy of offering more training for local casino dealers, whilst at the same time clearing their future positions from a natural obstacle in the form of imported foreign labour, will surely silence some of the intrinsically personal economic concerns and reduce the number of demonstrators in the street, but can we afford to forget that greater participation of local population in the gaming industry would only increase our dependency on a single sector of the economy, and gambling in general? The higher salaries offered by casinos are making the situation of our restaurants, shops and mom-and-pop businesses ever more intolerable and continue to asphyxiate those few daring to stay afloat.
Some of the SMEs are even forced to employ local residents merely to justify the use of non-resident workers, whilst an alarmingly high number of resident employees fail to produce a real added value for their employers and simply become a liability, part of the cost of hiring more qualified or more suitable foreign personnel.
There is a hope that the current labour crisis resolution process will not spell the end for Macau SMEs. If in the past the problem was addressed as a general move against the threat of foreign labour, the Government’s position seems to become clearer with calls for the major profit-generating players to shoulder the bulk of the problem, and the surging voices in support of SMEs, which by all means must be allowed to make their modest living in these extremely unfair market conditions.
To find a way out of the deadlock, Macau should first and foremost look back to its traditional values of multi-culturalism and tolerance. Over the course of history everyone living here contributed to the territory’s development, locals and foreigners alike. It’s that productive coexistence of peoples and cultures that made Macau what it has become today, what fortunately makes it different from any of our neighbours, and what ultimately attracts our visitors and our source of income.
The heritage of any Government is a complex matter. The general amnesty granted by the then Portuguese administration of Macau to tens of thousands of illegal mainland immigrants in the 80s and 90s obviously did not improve the overall education level of the general population, or any other demographic factor for that matter, but Macau managed to embrace the new and vibrant population which stayed and contributed to Macau growth over time.
We should grant resident status to the best representatives of a foreign labour force and allow their families to join them in Macau. If examples of our neighbours serve any positive purpose, then both Hong Kong and Singapore can give us a good lead.
For as long as we are able to resist xenophobic and populist arguments, Macau will be just fine. If we manage to implement sound economic and demographic policies before attempting any major economic changes, and not as a late remedy to inflicted damage, Macau will definitely do better. The process is not an easy one, but the end of monopolies has never been an easy venture.
Leo Stepanov
Managing Partner of Macau Translations Ltd.
Permanent Resident of Macau S.A.R.
Published in Macau Daily Times, 05 September 2008
The task of maintaining the local workers’ unemployment rate at a low level is undoubtedly enormous, but in no way should it have direct links to the overall plan of economic development of Macau through a cut in foreign labour, especially on the background of structural unemployment, a situation which a great many countries would envy.
The Government rightly makes efforts to increase the number of training and career development courses for local residents in several areas, including tourism and the casino industry. Despite all those good intentions there are at least four major pitfalls which are not being addressed.
The first of them is the fact that the total demand for qualified personnel needed to occupy management and supervisory positions by far exceeds the tiny number of local employees physically available to undergo such training and eventually substitute the outgoing foreigners.
Secondly, the objectives are not at all clear. If we trust the official figures of full employment in Macau, are we trying to integrate the remaining six thousand of functionally unemployed unqualified residents into the active labour force at all costs, or is there something wrong with the statistics?
The third issue is the quality of the educational programmes and the educators themselves. It’s no secret that recent years have seen a sharp deterioration in the quality of education offered locally, leading many students to opt for tremendously expensive private schooling and study overseas. The paradox of Government training may result in qualifications being insufficient to satisfy the requirements of future employers, while the local education sector itself may experience, or is already experiencing, a critical demand for imported foreign instructors and the organisation of something better than evening and weekend courses.
The fourth drawback is a seemingly total lack of attention to the areas of economy which go beyond the traditional tourism and casino industries, but are absolutely indispensable for balanced economic development. The exhibition and convention industry is sidelined, despite the fact that it takes a great deal of time and financial resources to produce professionals in that sector. The language abilities of local residents are left to the discretion of the prospective students themselves, as “they should make use of their spare time […] to improve their foreign language abilities”, according to Dr. Shuen, Director of the Labour Affairs Bureau. As a language specialist with more than 20 years experience in applied linguistics, may I suggest strongly that the foreign language abilities which Macau really needs may not, and will not, be developed in the spare time by individuals with precarious levels of general education. It would take more than a few highly qualified native speakers of a language and a modern educational technique applied over a significant period of time to achieve that objective, not to mention that the process must start from a comprehensive and thorough review of primary and secondary schooling.
Given the fact that nearly all future projects in the Government portfolio are extremely labour intensive, and a general understanding that the recently announced cuts of foreign labour in the construction, casino, cleaning and building management sectors are only the first indicators of a much bigger programme, we would hope not to receive a wrong message, which would warrant preparations for an abrupt halt in economic development as has happened in the past, time and again. We trust that these measures are a part of some comprehensive and scientific economic planning, the details of which remain to be seen.
Having grown up in a family of aviators, I couldn’t have left unnoticed the new economic reality for both major casino players and local small and medium enterprises (SMEs) brought about by restrictions in the individual travellers scheme, and an immediate need to get inbound travellers from places much further away. This need can only be satisfied through an efficient and flexible aviation industry, appropriate aircraft and, again, qualified people. With continuing feuds over outdated monopolies and a blind eye to the education and human resources needed for the industry what can we possibly expect? An aviation sector which is still in its infancy and totally out of reach for locally educated Macau residents.
Local universities do excellent work in educating foreign students and preparing them to join labour markets back in their home countries. Do we teach and prepare enough local residents for the tasks needed in Macau? I’ll leave the answer to that to the reader’s discretion.
We must give credit to the Government for finally focusing the issue on the most problematic areas and for departing from the implicitly generalised idea of merely having too many foreign labourers. The new draft of the Labour Relationship Law is a clear improvement over the 1984 Legal Regime of the Labour Relationship, which in turn was inherited from the Portuguese legislation dating back as far as the 19th century. The next most sensitive step would be the long-awaited draft of legislation on foreign labour and part-time workers, currently under preparation. The Government has a tremendous task at hand; the task of giving Macau the chance of a better future, and this task is not an easy one.
The proposed remedy of offering more training for local casino dealers, whilst at the same time clearing their future positions from a natural obstacle in the form of imported foreign labour, will surely silence some of the intrinsically personal economic concerns and reduce the number of demonstrators in the street, but can we afford to forget that greater participation of local population in the gaming industry would only increase our dependency on a single sector of the economy, and gambling in general? The higher salaries offered by casinos are making the situation of our restaurants, shops and mom-and-pop businesses ever more intolerable and continue to asphyxiate those few daring to stay afloat.
Some of the SMEs are even forced to employ local residents merely to justify the use of non-resident workers, whilst an alarmingly high number of resident employees fail to produce a real added value for their employers and simply become a liability, part of the cost of hiring more qualified or more suitable foreign personnel.
There is a hope that the current labour crisis resolution process will not spell the end for Macau SMEs. If in the past the problem was addressed as a general move against the threat of foreign labour, the Government’s position seems to become clearer with calls for the major profit-generating players to shoulder the bulk of the problem, and the surging voices in support of SMEs, which by all means must be allowed to make their modest living in these extremely unfair market conditions.
To find a way out of the deadlock, Macau should first and foremost look back to its traditional values of multi-culturalism and tolerance. Over the course of history everyone living here contributed to the territory’s development, locals and foreigners alike. It’s that productive coexistence of peoples and cultures that made Macau what it has become today, what fortunately makes it different from any of our neighbours, and what ultimately attracts our visitors and our source of income.
The heritage of any Government is a complex matter. The general amnesty granted by the then Portuguese administration of Macau to tens of thousands of illegal mainland immigrants in the 80s and 90s obviously did not improve the overall education level of the general population, or any other demographic factor for that matter, but Macau managed to embrace the new and vibrant population which stayed and contributed to Macau growth over time.
We should grant resident status to the best representatives of a foreign labour force and allow their families to join them in Macau. If examples of our neighbours serve any positive purpose, then both Hong Kong and Singapore can give us a good lead.
For as long as we are able to resist xenophobic and populist arguments, Macau will be just fine. If we manage to implement sound economic and demographic policies before attempting any major economic changes, and not as a late remedy to inflicted damage, Macau will definitely do better. The process is not an easy one, but the end of monopolies has never been an easy venture.
Leo Stepanov
Managing Partner of Macau Translations Ltd.
Permanent Resident of Macau S.A.R.
Published in Macau Daily Times, 05 September 2008
16 September 2008
Translating the Law: Getting across languages, cultures and legal systems
| by Rui Freitas* The demand for legal translations in Macau is rapidly on the rise whilst the number of good quality translators seems appallingly insufficient. One of the reasons is that there are simply not enough people in the territory who have the necessary combined level of Portuguese and Chinese proficiency. And those who are fluent in both official languages usually end up embarking upon a legal career. Needless to say, as a bilingual jurisdiction, there is a permanent need for translations between the two official languages. There is also, however, a widespread usage of English in contracts, which comes as no surprise since English is often the only language in common between all the parties and agents involved in legal relations. This results that, in practice, the Macau SAR is a quasi trilingual jurisdiction, which can be attested by the efforts the Government has made in making available English translations of some of the SAR's most important pieces of legislation.
Although this is not the venue for thick academic discourse, it is important to examine herein some of the more significant theoretical aspects that should be considered during the decision-making process of translators. Traditionally, the role of the translator was understood as a passive subject in the communicative process. For advocates of this approach, the translator is charged solely with the reproduction of the form and the substance of the source text in the target text. Translation of legal texts should therefore be as literal as possible, preserving the letter of the law. For some modern translation theorists, however, the translator should satisfy the cultural expectations of target receivers. According to this perspective, translation of legal texts ought to be receiver oriented and translation strategy ultimately determined by the communicative function or purpose of a translation. Under this functional approach, translators should adopt different strategies, choosing to focus more on the SL or the TL, according to whether the target text is to have a performative, normative or informative function. The translation of legislation which is to be vested with the force of law and court evidence should therefore be more literal, while translation of texts with informative purposes, such as judgments and awards, are allowed to be more free. This general theory is not bullet proof. Since legal texts are subject to legal rules, legal considerations should prevail. We can consider, for instance, the cases where contracts are drafted in Macau in English language, usually by professionals of a common law background, but whose governing law is Macau SAR's. When translating such contracts for submission as evidence, the translator should not rely on the SL but on the TL instead, because the legal relation is established in Macau and the legal dispute is being adjudicated by Macau Courts. Whether the chosen approach be a more literal or free one, there should not be, however, any excuse for translators falling in the classic pitfalls of translation. This means that, even if a translator has decided to preserve the letter of the law, false friends, incorrect syntactic structures and unnatural linguistic constructions should by no means be admissible in professional translation. Pescatore, a former Justice of the European Union, even goes further to suggest that target texts should read as if they were drafted in the TL. Naturally, all these implications of legal translations demand that, in addition to being proficient in the language pair being translated, legal translators need to have some legal background or at the very least work in close connection with legal professionals. However, due to the above mentioned limitations of the human capital in Macau, finding qualified and competent legal translators is not always possible. In-house legal translators are therefore usually overwhelmed with huge workloads. The adopted solutions are also not often the best in what quality translations are concerned. In fact, legal translations often end up being carried out by either translators who are neither native nor proficient in the target language or they are assigned to translators who are proficient but who do not have the necessary legal background to understand the mechanisms of the law. Faced with these difficulties, some lawyers and law offices taking work from foreign lawyers opt for outsourcing work to translators abroad. This is not a negative solution in itself, as the chances for finding qualified translators with experience and legal background is thus greater. It should be noted, however, that these translators seldom research the legislation of Macau. A possible solution for this problem could lie in employing in-house legal editors instead of translators, who would be responsible to revise, refine and conform outsourced translations to the jurisdiction of Macau. * C&C Holdings Published in Macau Daily Times, 20 July 2008 |
07 April 2008
Telecom company ... without telephones
World-famous Hong Kong efficiency phenomenally fails when it comes to servicing Macau customers, or a Sad Story of Trying to Buy a Blackberry Phone from 3 Macau.
Blackberry, a nice smartphone neatly packed up with high-tech features, is surely not for everyone. It is so much not so that it rightly deserves a separate department within the Hutchison Telephone (Macau) Company Limited that occupies a dedicated space on the 8th Floor of Zhu Kuan Building.
It all started from a humble call to 1118 hotline. Somewhere down the line of enquiry for the mobile services the machine said something like: “for shh-Phh-shh service press ‘one’, for Phh-shh-Phh service press ‘two’”. Unaware of hectic telecom codes we went for the first option and the information about service centres locations assured that the office in Zhu Kuan Building is The Place that we needed and it’s open from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m.
There we are at 13:15 having a break from busy work schedule and skipping our lunch to find out that everyone in the service centre has gone eating theirs. Luckily enough (Macau is a place of luck, after all), the busy telecom executive in charge hasn’t gone too far from the office and managed to have his way back to see his customer. Nice.
He is also The Authority for all Blackberry services and sales, the one and only to bring the magic of the push mail into your life. Cool.
That’s where it all stumbled though. The only information available for the customers was a tiny two-page leaflet full of sales pitches and NO information about the Blackberry models. Not even photos. Hmm.
There were photos on the Internet, of course, but the busy telecom executive didn’t have a password to his office PC, so there was a no-show. The product must have been scarce and the customers were meant to experience a golden rush for grabbing one before it’s too late! Another fine example of Hong Kong-style marketing success. Wow!
‘Do you have a sample in stock to take a look at?’
‘Oh, sure, my colleague has one, let me show it to you. It’s a bit used and scratched, but it’s a Blackberry!’ The customer’s heartbeat increases in anticipation.
Ohh, poor Macau folks have never seen one, indeed, so there was one. Well, you are the customer, don’t try to be right, you are wrong, and the telecom operator is right. Always.
‘Does it work with EDGE?’
‘Say that again? EDGE? Don’t know’. The customer shouldn’t have asked that, it’s so rude from his side to test the busy telecom executive’s competence. Sorry.
Off we go, or better, run away from The Authority trying to make up for the time lost for lunch. Meals are indeed important for intellectual professionals. They need nutrients for their heads to function. Fact of life.
The business card of the busy telecom executive gets lost somewhere on the way. Bad.
Another call to 1118 hotline, a day later. After going through a couple of minutes of irrelevant sales pitches and a compulsory ‘shh-Phh-shh’ and ‘Phh-shh-Phh’ thing, we hear a human voice. Earth is not controlled by robots. Not yet.
‘Can I help you?’
‘Yes, please. I would like to have a contact number of the customer service centre in Zhu Kuan Building’
‘Let me connect you to someone who can help’
‘???’
Half-a-dozen of PBX switches later and going from English to Cantonese and back to English, same question to another nice human voice.
The answer: ‘The customer service centre doesn’t have a telephone’
‘WHAT???’
‘If you request an information, you can leave your contact number and we will call you back.’
‘Fine’, the customer gives his contact number, albeit from another telecom operator. Bad luck.
‘Do you have another contact number?’
‘What’s wrong with my first one???’
‘Well you also have to give us your SIM card number’
‘…’
The Earth will be controlled by robots. Very soon.
‘Sorry ma’am, I cannot give you my SIM card number, even if I wanted to! I have to hang up this call, open my phone cover, remove the battery, remove the SIM card, write down the number, put the card and battery back and make another call to 1118 hotline … And how would you suggest to find you in the middle of the internal matrix universe … Do you have a direct line where I can find you?’
‘No, you have to call the hotline.’
‘And what about the ‘shh-Phh-shh’ thing, shall I choose first or second?’
‘Either will do.’
‘What does it stand for anyway?’
‘2G service and 3G service’
‘OHH, I see, that what it is’
Stupid customer, as only Macau customers could be.
A friend of the customer happened to have a mobile number of the busy telecom executive. Odds in customer’s favour. Cool.
‘Hello there, I visited your company’s website, but the model that I am looking for is not there …’
‘Have you seen the other model so-and-so? The one you are looking for is almost the same, with some minor differences.’
Very helpful. And very professional.
‘Another question, apologize for my asking, why your 1118 hotline wouldn’t give me the customer service centre number?’
‘[in Cantonese] something like ‘What is it that you want, mister?’
Well, nothing any more. Really.
Guess what, I am still buying my Blackberry. Not from 3 Macau. It takes less than 10 minutes to do that in some other place.
The 3 Macau wasted 3 hours of customer’s time over a course of two days. Simultaneous interpreters charge well over thousand patacas per hour of their time. Enough to buy a Blackberry or two … Sad.
Well, all is well that ends well. Here are some caveats:
1) Macau should adopt an anti-trust legislation. Urgently.
2) The customers should start recording hotline calls from their end. This WILL improve the service.
3) Hong Kong-style service is the most efficient in the world. Full stop.
Leo Stepanov
Conference and Deposition Interpreter
Published in Macau Daily Times, 08 April 2008
Blackberry, a nice smartphone neatly packed up with high-tech features, is surely not for everyone. It is so much not so that it rightly deserves a separate department within the Hutchison Telephone (Macau) Company Limited that occupies a dedicated space on the 8th Floor of Zhu Kuan Building.
It all started from a humble call to 1118 hotline. Somewhere down the line of enquiry for the mobile services the machine said something like: “for shh-Phh-shh service press ‘one’, for Phh-shh-Phh service press ‘two’”. Unaware of hectic telecom codes we went for the first option and the information about service centres locations assured that the office in Zhu Kuan Building is The Place that we needed and it’s open from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m.
There we are at 13:15 having a break from busy work schedule and skipping our lunch to find out that everyone in the service centre has gone eating theirs. Luckily enough (Macau is a place of luck, after all), the busy telecom executive in charge hasn’t gone too far from the office and managed to have his way back to see his customer. Nice.
He is also The Authority for all Blackberry services and sales, the one and only to bring the magic of the push mail into your life. Cool.
That’s where it all stumbled though. The only information available for the customers was a tiny two-page leaflet full of sales pitches and NO information about the Blackberry models. Not even photos. Hmm.
There were photos on the Internet, of course, but the busy telecom executive didn’t have a password to his office PC, so there was a no-show. The product must have been scarce and the customers were meant to experience a golden rush for grabbing one before it’s too late! Another fine example of Hong Kong-style marketing success. Wow!
‘Do you have a sample in stock to take a look at?’
‘Oh, sure, my colleague has one, let me show it to you. It’s a bit used and scratched, but it’s a Blackberry!’ The customer’s heartbeat increases in anticipation.
Ohh, poor Macau folks have never seen one, indeed, so there was one. Well, you are the customer, don’t try to be right, you are wrong, and the telecom operator is right. Always.
‘Does it work with EDGE?’
‘Say that again? EDGE? Don’t know’. The customer shouldn’t have asked that, it’s so rude from his side to test the busy telecom executive’s competence. Sorry.
Off we go, or better, run away from The Authority trying to make up for the time lost for lunch. Meals are indeed important for intellectual professionals. They need nutrients for their heads to function. Fact of life.
The business card of the busy telecom executive gets lost somewhere on the way. Bad.
Another call to 1118 hotline, a day later. After going through a couple of minutes of irrelevant sales pitches and a compulsory ‘shh-Phh-shh’ and ‘Phh-shh-Phh’ thing, we hear a human voice. Earth is not controlled by robots. Not yet.
‘Can I help you?’
‘Yes, please. I would like to have a contact number of the customer service centre in Zhu Kuan Building’
‘Let me connect you to someone who can help’
‘???’
Half-a-dozen of PBX switches later and going from English to Cantonese and back to English, same question to another nice human voice.
The answer: ‘The customer service centre doesn’t have a telephone’
‘WHAT???’
‘If you request an information, you can leave your contact number and we will call you back.’
‘Fine’, the customer gives his contact number, albeit from another telecom operator. Bad luck.
‘Do you have another contact number?’
‘What’s wrong with my first one???’
‘Well you also have to give us your SIM card number’
‘…’
The Earth will be controlled by robots. Very soon.
‘Sorry ma’am, I cannot give you my SIM card number, even if I wanted to! I have to hang up this call, open my phone cover, remove the battery, remove the SIM card, write down the number, put the card and battery back and make another call to 1118 hotline … And how would you suggest to find you in the middle of the internal matrix universe … Do you have a direct line where I can find you?’
‘No, you have to call the hotline.’
‘And what about the ‘shh-Phh-shh’ thing, shall I choose first or second?’
‘Either will do.’
‘What does it stand for anyway?’
‘2G service and 3G service’
‘OHH, I see, that what it is’
Stupid customer, as only Macau customers could be.
A friend of the customer happened to have a mobile number of the busy telecom executive. Odds in customer’s favour. Cool.
‘Hello there, I visited your company’s website, but the model that I am looking for is not there …’
‘Have you seen the other model so-and-so? The one you are looking for is almost the same, with some minor differences.’
Very helpful. And very professional.
‘Another question, apologize for my asking, why your 1118 hotline wouldn’t give me the customer service centre number?’
‘[in Cantonese] something like ‘What is it that you want, mister?’
Well, nothing any more. Really.
Guess what, I am still buying my Blackberry. Not from 3 Macau. It takes less than 10 minutes to do that in some other place.
The 3 Macau wasted 3 hours of customer’s time over a course of two days. Simultaneous interpreters charge well over thousand patacas per hour of their time. Enough to buy a Blackberry or two … Sad.
Well, all is well that ends well. Here are some caveats:
1) Macau should adopt an anti-trust legislation. Urgently.
2) The customers should start recording hotline calls from their end. This WILL improve the service.
3) Hong Kong-style service is the most efficient in the world. Full stop.
Leo Stepanov
Conference and Deposition Interpreter
Published in Macau Daily Times, 08 April 2008
31 March 2008
DEFLATING THE MYTH OF MONOGAMY
Infants have their infancy. And adults? Adultery.
The Nobel Prize-winning ethologist Konrad Lorenz used to recommend that every scientist discard at least one cherished notion every day, before breakfast. It is excellent advice (although Lorenz wasn't known for tossing away many of his own prized ideas). In any event, good science doesn't really require that its practitioners intentionally turn their backs on what they believe to be true, or what they devoutly wish were so. Tincture of time and the accumulation of new findings generally accomplish that: If we wait long enough, the world has a habit of making mincemeat of even our most strongly held ideas. The only thing necessary is to remain open to the evidence.
Case in point: the widely held view that certain animals -- notably the great majority of bird species -- are monogamous. Second case in point: the belief that females of most species, including our own, strongly tend toward sexual fidelity -- in contrast to males, who are known to have a penchant for sexual variety, if not promiscuity.
From "Deflating the Myth of Monogamy" by David P. Barash
The Nobel Prize-winning ethologist Konrad Lorenz used to recommend that every scientist discard at least one cherished notion every day, before breakfast. It is excellent advice (although Lorenz wasn't known for tossing away many of his own prized ideas). In any event, good science doesn't really require that its practitioners intentionally turn their backs on what they believe to be true, or what they devoutly wish were so. Tincture of time and the accumulation of new findings generally accomplish that: If we wait long enough, the world has a habit of making mincemeat of even our most strongly held ideas. The only thing necessary is to remain open to the evidence.
Case in point: the widely held view that certain animals -- notably the great majority of bird species -- are monogamous. Second case in point: the belief that females of most species, including our own, strongly tend toward sexual fidelity -- in contrast to males, who are known to have a penchant for sexual variety, if not promiscuity.
From "Deflating the Myth of Monogamy" by David P. Barash
10 March 2008
A Message from John Cleese - British Comedian
To the citizens of the United States of America:
In light of your failure to nominate a competent candidate for President of the USA and thus to govern yourselves, we hereby give notice of the revocation of your independence, effective immediately.
Her Sovereign Majesty Queen Elizabeth II will resume monarchical duties over all states, commonwealths, and territories (except Kansas, which she does not fancy).
Your new Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, will appoint a Governor for America without the need for further elections. Congress and the Senate will be disbanded.
A questionnaire may be circulated next year to determine whether any of you noticed.
To aid in the transition to a British Crown Dependency, the following rules are introduced with immediate effect:
You should look up "revocation" in the Oxford English Dictionary.
1. Then look up aluminium, and check the pronunciation guide. You will be amazed at just how wrongly you have been pronouncing it.
2. The letter 'U' will be reinstated in words such as 'colour', 'favour' and 'neighbour.' Likewise, you will learn to spell 'doughnut' without skipping half the letters, and the suffix '-ize' will be replaced by the suffix '-ise'.
Generally, you will be expected to raise your vocabulary to acceptable levels. (look up 'vocabulary').
------------------------
3. Using the same twenty-seven words interspersed with filler noises such as "like" and "you know" is an unacceptable and inefficient form of communication. There is no such thing as US English. We will let Microsoft know on your behalf. The Microsoft spell- checker will be adjusted to take account of the reinstated letter 'u' and the elimination of -ize.
-------------------
4. July 4th will no longer be celebrated as a holiday.
-----------------
5. You will learn to resolve personal issues without using guns, lawyers, or therapists. The fact that you need so many lawyers and therapists shows that you're not adult enough to be independent.
Guns should only be handled by adults. If you're not adult enough to sort things out without suing someone or speaking to a therapist then you're not grown up enough to handle a gun.
----------------------
6. Therefore, you will no longer be allowed to own or carry anything more dangerous than a vegetable peeler. A permit will be required if you wish to carry a vegetable peeler in public.
----------------------
7. All intersections will be replaced with roundabouts, and you will start driving on the left with immediate effect. At the same time, you will go metric with immediate effect and without the benefit of conversion tables. Both roundabouts and metrication will help you understand the British sense of humour.
--------------------
8. The Former USA will adopt UK prices on petrol (which you have been calling gasoline)-roughly $6/US gallon. Get used to it.
-------------------
9. You will learn to make real chips. Those things you call French fries are not real chips, and those things you insist on calling potato chips are properly called crisps. Real chips are thick cut, fried in animal fat, and dressed not with catsup but with vinegar.
-------------------
10. The cold tasteless stuff you insist on calling beer is not actually beer at all. Henceforth, only proper British Bitter will be referred to as beer, and European brews of known and accepted provenance will be referred to as Lager. South African beer is also acceptable as they are pound for pound the greatest sporting Nation on earth and it can only be due to the beer. They are also part of British Commonwealth - see what it did for them. American brands will be
referred to as Near-Frozen Gnat's Urine, so that all can be sold without risk of further confusion.
---------------------
11. Hollywood will be required occasionally to cast English actors as good guys. Hollywood will also be required to cast English actors to play English characters. Watching Andie Macdowell attempt English dialogue in "Four Weddings and a Funeral" was an experience akin to having one's ears removed with a cheese grater.
---------------------
12. You will cease playing American football. There is only one kind of proper football; you call it soccer. Those of you brave enough will, in time, be allowed to play rugby (which has some similarities to American football, but does not involve stopping for a rest every twenty seconds or wearing full kevlar body armour like a bunch of nancies). Don't try Rugby - the South Africans and Kiwis will thrash you, like they regularly thrash us.
---------------------
13. Further, you will stop playing baseball. It is not reasonable to host an event called the World Series for a game which is not played outside of America. Since only 2.1% of you are aware that there is a world beyond your borders, your error is understandable. You will learn cricket, and we will let you face the South Africans first to take the sting out of their deliveries.
--------------------
14. You must tell us who killed JFK. It's been driving us mad.
-----------------
15. An internal revenue agent (i.e. tax collector) from Her Majesty's Government will be with you shortly to ensure the acquisition of all monies due (backdated to 1776).
---------------
16. Daily Tea Time begins promptly at 4 pm with proper cups, with saucers, and never mugs, with high quality biscuits (cookies) and cakes; plus strawberries (with cream) when in season.
God save the Queen
In light of your failure to nominate a competent candidate for President of the USA and thus to govern yourselves, we hereby give notice of the revocation of your independence, effective immediately.
Her Sovereign Majesty Queen Elizabeth II will resume monarchical duties over all states, commonwealths, and territories (except Kansas, which she does not fancy).
Your new Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, will appoint a Governor for America without the need for further elections. Congress and the Senate will be disbanded.
A questionnaire may be circulated next year to determine whether any of you noticed.
To aid in the transition to a British Crown Dependency, the following rules are introduced with immediate effect:
You should look up "revocation" in the Oxford English Dictionary.
1. Then look up aluminium, and check the pronunciation guide. You will be amazed at just how wrongly you have been pronouncing it.
2. The letter 'U' will be reinstated in words such as 'colour', 'favour' and 'neighbour.' Likewise, you will learn to spell 'doughnut' without skipping half the letters, and the suffix '-ize' will be replaced by the suffix '-ise'.
Generally, you will be expected to raise your vocabulary to acceptable levels. (look up 'vocabulary').
------------------------
3. Using the same twenty-seven words interspersed with filler noises such as "like" and "you know" is an unacceptable and inefficient form of communication. There is no such thing as US English. We will let Microsoft know on your behalf. The Microsoft spell- checker will be adjusted to take account of the reinstated letter 'u' and the elimination of -ize.
-------------------
4. July 4th will no longer be celebrated as a holiday.
-----------------
5. You will learn to resolve personal issues without using guns, lawyers, or therapists. The fact that you need so many lawyers and therapists shows that you're not adult enough to be independent.
Guns should only be handled by adults. If you're not adult enough to sort things out without suing someone or speaking to a therapist then you're not grown up enough to handle a gun.
----------------------
6. Therefore, you will no longer be allowed to own or carry anything more dangerous than a vegetable peeler. A permit will be required if you wish to carry a vegetable peeler in public.
----------------------
7. All intersections will be replaced with roundabouts, and you will start driving on the left with immediate effect. At the same time, you will go metric with immediate effect and without the benefit of conversion tables. Both roundabouts and metrication will help you understand the British sense of humour.
--------------------
8. The Former USA will adopt UK prices on petrol (which you have been calling gasoline)-roughly $6/US gallon. Get used to it.
-------------------
9. You will learn to make real chips. Those things you call French fries are not real chips, and those things you insist on calling potato chips are properly called crisps. Real chips are thick cut, fried in animal fat, and dressed not with catsup but with vinegar.
-------------------
10. The cold tasteless stuff you insist on calling beer is not actually beer at all. Henceforth, only proper British Bitter will be referred to as beer, and European brews of known and accepted provenance will be referred to as Lager. South African beer is also acceptable as they are pound for pound the greatest sporting Nation on earth and it can only be due to the beer. They are also part of British Commonwealth - see what it did for them. American brands will be
referred to as Near-Frozen Gnat's Urine, so that all can be sold without risk of further confusion.
---------------------
11. Hollywood will be required occasionally to cast English actors as good guys. Hollywood will also be required to cast English actors to play English characters. Watching Andie Macdowell attempt English dialogue in "Four Weddings and a Funeral" was an experience akin to having one's ears removed with a cheese grater.
---------------------
12. You will cease playing American football. There is only one kind of proper football; you call it soccer. Those of you brave enough will, in time, be allowed to play rugby (which has some similarities to American football, but does not involve stopping for a rest every twenty seconds or wearing full kevlar body armour like a bunch of nancies). Don't try Rugby - the South Africans and Kiwis will thrash you, like they regularly thrash us.
---------------------
13. Further, you will stop playing baseball. It is not reasonable to host an event called the World Series for a game which is not played outside of America. Since only 2.1% of you are aware that there is a world beyond your borders, your error is understandable. You will learn cricket, and we will let you face the South Africans first to take the sting out of their deliveries.
--------------------
14. You must tell us who killed JFK. It's been driving us mad.
-----------------
15. An internal revenue agent (i.e. tax collector) from Her Majesty's Government will be with you shortly to ensure the acquisition of all monies due (backdated to 1776).
---------------
16. Daily Tea Time begins promptly at 4 pm with proper cups, with saucers, and never mugs, with high quality biscuits (cookies) and cakes; plus strawberries (with cream) when in season.
God save the Queen
06 March 2008
Macau skies: flying monopoly or star wars?
We're not containing Macau skies, says Air Macau CEO David Fei
We are just totally controlling them, he could have said, as "VIVA Macau was not restricted in its operation, as long as Air Macau approved of where it was intending to fly.[footnote]" From linguistic point of view, this is probably one of the finest oxymorons an aviation industry representative could come up with while trying to protect his domination of the skies.
If civil aircraft were equipped with rockets, they'd be firing at one another right now. Luckily we are not into another episode of star wars, but this war of words doesn't lead Macau any closer to the source of tourists it needs and wants.
As Macau heads into a largely unknown, but hugely promising, future, first of our home-grown airlines does extremely well in two major areas: protectionism and ... golf ! Air Macau directors are continuously ranking among the best local golf players, while VIVA Macau tries to excel
in ... well, aviation business.
Beat up your own people, so the outsiders would feel scared! An age-old totalitarian dogma that nicely found its way into a booming capitalist melting pot that Macau is today.
Singaporeans should be grateful as they are able to put two of their carriers on a lucrative route, which could have brought a handful of benefits, and income, to all Macau airlines and Macau people. It didn't. The service is reserved for yet another Macau airline that doesn't even exist, if not on paper, not without the Air Macau's blessing.
Oh, we should have overreacted here. Why not letting foreign operators to take care of our business and our future? It's been done so successfully in so many sectors of our economy already. Why bother registering local company and going through the myriad of procedures, tons of paperwork, hassle with authorisations and the likes, when you can do better by just being an outsider? Come and take advantage of Macau economic boom! Why not? The local regulators will protect you from ... local competitors! They will indeed make sure that your "home-grown" business adversaries are well-groomed by prohibitive local bureaucracy and sufficiently sick and tired of their own labour blues.
Macau means money, it seems to have more money, than it can possibly cope with. It's all there waiting for you, just come and take it. The destination is Macau!
Footnote: Macau Daily Times, 06 March 2008
We are just totally controlling them, he could have said, as "VIVA Macau was not restricted in its operation, as long as Air Macau approved of where it was intending to fly.[footnote]" From linguistic point of view, this is probably one of the finest oxymorons an aviation industry representative could come up with while trying to protect his domination of the skies.
If civil aircraft were equipped with rockets, they'd be firing at one another right now. Luckily we are not into another episode of star wars, but this war of words doesn't lead Macau any closer to the source of tourists it needs and wants.
As Macau heads into a largely unknown, but hugely promising, future, first of our home-grown airlines does extremely well in two major areas: protectionism and ... golf ! Air Macau directors are continuously ranking among the best local golf players, while VIVA Macau tries to excel
in ... well, aviation business.
Beat up your own people, so the outsiders would feel scared! An age-old totalitarian dogma that nicely found its way into a booming capitalist melting pot that Macau is today.
Singaporeans should be grateful as they are able to put two of their carriers on a lucrative route, which could have brought a handful of benefits, and income, to all Macau airlines and Macau people. It didn't. The service is reserved for yet another Macau airline that doesn't even exist, if not on paper, not without the Air Macau's blessing.
Oh, we should have overreacted here. Why not letting foreign operators to take care of our business and our future? It's been done so successfully in so many sectors of our economy already. Why bother registering local company and going through the myriad of procedures, tons of paperwork, hassle with authorisations and the likes, when you can do better by just being an outsider? Come and take advantage of Macau economic boom! Why not? The local regulators will protect you from ... local competitors! They will indeed make sure that your "home-grown" business adversaries are well-groomed by prohibitive local bureaucracy and sufficiently sick and tired of their own labour blues.
Macau means money, it seems to have more money, than it can possibly cope with. It's all there waiting for you, just come and take it. The destination is Macau!
Footnote: Macau Daily Times, 06 March 2008
08 February 2008
The Police concert in Venetian Macau
The hugely popular Police group blasted off the first day of the New Year of the Rat in Venetian Arena with Sting under the spotlight of attention.
What counts is that Sheldon Adelson seems to get it all right: a good half of the visitors to the show actually flew to Macau to see the concert. Imagine having to pay for the air ticket and (a very expensive - CNY!) hotel for a two-hour excitement.
Well, Macau IS back on the world map now, make no mistake about that.
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